At these words a light so eager, so beautiful, so tender that it seemed to transfigure her, suddenly illumined Edith's face, for they confirmed, beyond a doubt, the suspicion and hope that had been creeping into her heart.
"Tell me—are you that 'Belle'?" she whispered, bending nearer to her with gleaming eyes.
"Oh, do not ask me!" cried the unhappy woman, a bitter sob escaping her.
She had never dreamed of anything so dreadful as that those fatal letters would fall into the hands of her child, to prejudice her and make her shrink from her with aversion.
She had planned, if she was ever so fortunate as to find her, and had to reveal her history to her, to smooth over all that would be likely to shock her—that she would never confess to her how despair had driven her to the verge of that one crime upon which she now looked back with unspeakable horror.
The thought that this beautiful girl knew all, and believed the worst—as she could not fail to do, she reasoned, after reading the crude facts mentioned in those letters—filled her with shame and grief: for how could she ever eradicate those first impressions, and win the love she so craved?
Thus she was wholly unprepared for what followed immediately upon her indirect acknowledgment of her identity.
The gentle girl, her expressive face radiant with mingled joy, love, sympathy, slipped both arms around her companion's waist, and dropping her head upon her shoulder, murmured, fondly:
"Ah, I am sure you are!—I am sure that I have found my mother, and—I am almost too happy to live."
"Child! my own darling! Is it possible that you can thus open your heart of hearts to me?" sobbed the astonished woman, as she clasped the slight form to her in a convulsive embrace.